Dear Friends,                                                                               A Pride Month Tale

A long, long time ago, in another millennium, I went to the Pride Parade in New York. These were early days, Stonewall was barely more than the day before yesterday. The very idea of Pride was new. Coming out … well the huge range of dangers from family, friends, employers, the government … coming out took guts.

But the mood of the parade was entirely joyful, free, happily embracing silliness, along with the simple statement: We are here. By any later standards it was pretty small, the parade itself and the spectators. But small can be beautiful. We all felt present together.

There were no floats or anything like that, just different gay groups figuring out costumes from nothing, glorifying them to us all.

One group was so … well wait for that … they were a gay swimming club, and their costumes were just speedos and blue balloons tied around their chests (they must have been wearing something on their feet, but I don’t think anyone noticed, I certainly didn’t). They were stepping forward doing breast-stroke with their arms, in time with their feet, and both following their chanted slogan. The sight alone was beautiful, amazing – a wonderful costume, made of balloons, taking all of us out into the ocean – and completely, wonderfully silly. And then their slogan:

We’re here, we’re queer, we’re swimmers!

Yes, there are certainly slogans as good as this, many of them, but is there any one that is better? Anyway, that’s how I felt watching them, hearing them, and I’ve never changed my mind.

Being at the parade was a wonderful and happy experience, and new. We had been marching for years, but nothing like this. And it showed me, at least, that we’d been missing something – maybe many things.

That was a long, long time ago. We’ve advanced, we’ve retreated, I have no idea where we are now. But … I never forget those boys in speedos with blue balloons around their chests. I think that they must be a part of any true movement towards a just and humane society in which individuals are not only free and equal in all the standard juridical ways, but also free to be happy, yes, yes, Jefferson said all that, the pursuit of happiness, and yes, it’s a good phrase. But happiness isn’t something out there to be pursued and caught, it’s our lived experience, and the oddest little things can give us the most extraordinary happiness.

We’re here, we’re queer, we’re swimmers!

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby